Much talk has been happening about Wubi that is going to be a part of Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron. Wubi is a utility that allows installation of Ubuntu through Windows! What’s more? You can uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs in the Windows control panel.

For the geeks, what Wubi does is:

A small executable that can be included on the CD which does the following:

If an Ubuntu CD is not present in a CD drive, locates the ISO on your system or downloads it via metadl (which can be taught to perform mirror selection)

Asks for a user name and password

Gathers information from Windows for the remaining install settings

Creates a 5GB image file in a user-defined location, C:\ubuntu by default

Creates a pre-seed file for the install

Adds Ubuntu entry to the Windows bootloader

Reboots to start an install process (non-interactive)

if a CD is present in a drive, uses that; otherwise loop-mounts an ISO image from the Windows drive

However not many know that this feature is already available in Mandriva Linux

Mandriva can be installed from another operating system that is rpm based or deb based, not just Windows. It works using UNetbootin which adds an entry in the boot menu to install Mandriva. (Read here…)

Shift Linux (by the Windows guys) has recently released 0.6.5 that is based on Hardy Heron beta. Right now its more of a live cd but there are plans of a full release too. Most probably this would include Wubi too (Isn’t too surprising considering its based on Hardy Heron) (Read here…)

Finally lets talk a bit about UNetbootin. Now this allows you to install any operating system like ubuntu, madriva, fedora etc through Windows. The number of distributions listed here is surprising and slightly spoils the show for Wubi. UNetbootin however works in a different way than Wubi and this very technique makes it so generic. (Read a useful tutorial here…)

Wubi however is still easier for a user who isn’t very technical or does not have the patience and still wants to install and use Linux. Things only become easier by the day!